Actor, director, graduate student and recent General Hospital guest star James Franco comes to the 60th annual Berlinale film festival with Howl, a film that blurs the lines between narrative and documentary in which he stars as Beat Generation writer Allen Ginsberg.
Franco tells Metro about playing Ginsberg, attending Columbia University and why he doesn’t like starring in his own films.
Was Ginsberg your favorite Beat writer?
When I was younger, we probably read more Kerouac than Ginsberg. In the States at least, there are a lot of young people that are attracted to the Beats at a certain age. I was certainly attracted to them, but I think it’s a fairly common experience. As an actor, I always thought I would play Kerouac or Neal Cassady. I never thought I would play Allen Ginsberg. So it was kind of a surprise when they asked me to do that. I was a fan, but I guess I just had to convince myself that I was right for it or that I could do it.
Did you find the prospect of reading Ginsberg’s poem Howl in the film daunting?
No. I was pretty familiar with the poem. And I do readings like the one that’s portrayed in the film, so it’s something that I was fairly used to. It’s just that I had to read it as if I was Ginsberg. He reads in a particular way, so it was just a matter of listening to his readings. There are probably six decades’ worth of Ginsberg reading that poem, so I had a lot of material to draw from. I live in New York so I walk a lot, so it was just a case of listening to him every time I walked to school.
What prompted your return to school?
I’d been acting for about eight years, and then I got a new understanding of what it was to be an actor. I realized that filmmaking is a director’s medium, and as an actor I had a limited kind of participation in films. It’s fine, I’m happy to fulfill that role as an actor, but I had other interests. So I went back to school. For me, school is very grounding. It’s a way of studying other artists and writers and filmmakers. It’s a much more grounded and intellectual way to study what I love.
You also have two short films you directed in the festival. Do you see that as separate from your acting career?
Yes. I don’t act in those films. I love the idea of collaborating with actors who I look up to. It’s a different experience and it’s very rewarding. I’ve directed myself. Before I went to film school, I did three low-budget feature films and I acted in all of them because I was very insecure as a director. I didn’t want to give the scripts to any actors that I really respected. I didn’t find it that difficult to switch hats in the middle of the process. It’s just not an enjoyable experience.
What do you have coming up next?
I’m going to do a movie with Danny Boyle called 127 Hours. It’s based on the true story of Aaron Ralston, a mountain climber who accidentally got his arm trapped under a boulder in Utah while hiking. He was stuck there for five days and eventually cut his arm off with a pocket knife to escape. And he survived. We’re going to shoot in Utah at the actual site where it happened.
